{"id":492,"date":"2025-02-25T08:44:02","date_gmt":"2025-02-25T08:44:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2025\/02\/25\/even-as-macron-flatters-dear-donald-the-us-is-deeply-estranged-from-the-west-on-ukraine-cnn\/"},"modified":"2025-02-25T08:44:02","modified_gmt":"2025-02-25T08:44:02","slug":"even-as-macron-flatters-dear-donald-the-us-is-deeply-estranged-from-the-west-on-ukraine-cnn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2025\/02\/25\/even-as-macron-flatters-dear-donald-the-us-is-deeply-estranged-from-the-west-on-ukraine-cnn\/","title":{"rendered":"Even as Macron flatters \u2018Dear Donald,\u2019 the US is deeply estranged from the West on Ukraine – CNN"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"US<\/picture> <\/div>\n
\n

<\/span> CNN<\/span> \u00a0\u2014\u00a0 <\/cite> <\/p>\n

This is how much Donald Trump has already transformed America\u2019s global role. <\/p>\n

Loath to condemn Kremlin aggression on Monday\u2019s third anniversary of the brutal onslaught on Ukraine, the United States chose new voting buddies at the United Nations, including longtime enemies Russia and North Korea. <\/p>\n

The drama at UN headquarters better reflected the gaping new transatlantic rift than the scenes in the White House as Trump and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron clasped hands and ladled out mutual flattery. <\/p>\n

This was not the only jarring juxtaposition on a day of diplomatic drama stretching from Kyiv to Moscow, from London to Washington and New York as global powers jockey for position in the global great game suddenly shaken up by Trump. <\/p>\n

Say one thing for the American president \u2014 his craving for a one-on-one summit with his friend, Russian President Vladimir Putin, has unleashed a torrent of crisis diplomacy aimed at ending the war in Ukraine that was frozen for years. <\/p>\n

But his mind-boggling turn toward Putin and away from Ukraine has scrambled old alliances and set off a race by America\u2019s allies and adversaries to shape the peace deal he plans to conclude with the Russian leader. <\/p>\n

On the anniversary of the invasion, world leaders took the train into wartime Kyiv to stand with President Volodymyr Zelensky \u2014 fresh from being lambasted by Trump. They included Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who could commiserate with his host after Trump insulted him again Monday as the \u201cGovernor\u201d of the supposed 51st state. <\/p>\n

In London, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who will follow Macron\u2019s bid to redirect Trump with his own White House trip on Thursday, said the G7 should take on \u201cmore risk\u201d to hurt Russia as he announced a new raft of sanctions. But Trump wants Russia back in the rich nations\u2019 club. <\/p>\n

In Moscow, Putin condemned European leaders whom he suggested were too close to Ukraine to help broker peace while dispensing the kind of praise that Trump laps up when he said the president was free from such \u201cshackles.\u201d <\/p>\n

Behind the diplomatic theater is a common theme: Leaders know that Trump is desperate for a \u201cdeal\u201d to bolster his reputation and worry that in his quest for political adulation at home and an elusive Nobel peace prize, the US president isn\u2019t particular about the details. <\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, that\u2019s what I do. I do deals. My whole life is deals. That\u2019s all I know, is deals. And I know when somebody wants to make it and when somebody doesn\u2019t,\u201d Trump said at a news conference with Macron on Monday. <\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s subordinates endlessly lionize him for almost super-human prowess at the bargaining table. \u201cHe\u2019s the dealmaker in chief. He\u2019s the commander in chief. And it\u2019s only because of his strength that we\u2019re even in this position,\u201d national security adviser Mike Waltz said on Fox Business on Sunday, for example. <\/p>\n

The best thing that can be said for the president\u2019s unorthodox approach is that he has offered the possibility of ending a war that is grinding through the lives of young Ukrainian and Russian soldiers and has killed thousands of civilians. <\/p>\n

And if he succeeds in inking an agreement with Ukraine to exploit its rare earth metals and minerals \u2014 a big if, considering Kyiv refused his previous pillaging demands \u2014 he will create a future economic lifeline for the country as it rebuilds and forge a reason for his administration and others to stay engaged. <\/p>\n

And no one can say the president isn\u2019t acting on the \u201cAmerica First\u201d promises that convinced many voters to give him a second term. <\/p>\n

His administration\u2019s brutalist new approach to Europe has got results. France and Britain are offering to send a \u201creassurance\u201d force to Ukraine after a peace deal and NATO states look like they will at last start significantly increasing defense spending. <\/p>\n

But Ukraine \u2014 and for that matter Gaza, which Trump wants to turn into the \u201cRiviera of the Middle East\u201d after sending the Palestinians somewhere else \u2014 isn\u2019t a real estate deal. <\/p>\n

Peacemaking involves human lives, history\u2019s animosities and complex calculations, including the existential question of whether Ukraine will survive and what a Putin \u201cwin\u201d would mean for future European security. There\u2019s no comparison to the branding deals and acquisitions that Trump swung for casinos, golf clubs and skyscrapers during his checkered career as a property developer. <\/p>\n

And European concerns were only exacerbated in Monday\u2019s joint news conference with Macron when Trump displayed his apparently limited interest and understanding of how a peace deal without security guarantees could reward Putin\u2019s land grab and lay the groundwork for future wars. The president instead incessantly complained that the invasion would never have happened if he had been in office. <\/p>\n

Macron used his extensive repertoire of compliments, tactile body language and handshakes that never seemed to end on \u201cDear Donald.\u201d And he even got away with correcting him in the Oval Office over his false claims that Washington had almost doubled Europe\u2019s support for Ukraine. <\/p>\n

After visiting the White House, Macron sought out another venue to get to Trump \u2014 Fox News, telling Bret Baier, \u201cI think the arrival of President Trump is a game changer. And I think he has the deterrence capacity of the US to re-engage with Russia \u2026 my concern is that we have to go fast. But we need something first, a truce, which could be assessed, and checked, and full-fledged negotiation.\u201d <\/p>\n

Earlier, after turning to Trump at the White House, Macron said: \u201cWe want peace; he wants peace. We want peace swiftly, but we don\u2019t want an agreement that is weak.\u201d The French and the British want security guarantees for Ukraine that they argue can only be reinforced by an American \u201cbackstop\u201d if Russia is to be prevented from restarting the war. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact that there are Europeans that are ready to engage to provide for these security guarantees and now there\u2019s a clear American message that the US, as an ally, is ready to provide that solidarity for that approach \u2014 that\u2019s a turning point,\u201d Macron said. \u201cAnd that is one of the great areas of progress that we\u2019ve made during this trip.\u201d <\/p>\n

But how far \u201csolidarity\u201d goes is unclear since Trump refused to publicly offer US help. Perhaps he doesn\u2019t want to anger Putin before their eventual summit. Or maybe he worries about a possible clash between US and Russian forces if American troops were part of those security guarantees. <\/p>\n

Despite Macron\u2019s claims of progress, Trump still views the war through a different lens \u2013 as events at the UN showed. <\/p>\n

The US delegation voted with some of its most sworn adversaries, including regimes in Moscow and Pyongyang, against a General Assembly resolution condemning Russian aggression in Ukraine and calling for the return of Kyiv\u2019s territories. <\/p>\n

Later, Russia and the US voted together again on a Security Council resolution drafted by Washington that did not highlight Moscow\u2019s aggression but that called for a swift end to the war and a lasting peace. <\/p>\n

The US resolution passed 10-0 in the Security Council. But several top US allies, including permanent five members France and Britain, abstained. Both countries offered amendments to Washington\u2019s resolution seeking to insert references to the United Nations Charter and Ukraine\u2019s territorial integrity, a European diplomat said. But Russia vetoed them both. \u201cRussia continues to trample on international law and the United Nations Charter by pursuing its aggression against Ukraine,\u201d the diplomat said. <\/p>\n

This estrangement between Washington and allies it has protected since World War II was laid bare in the Oval Office when Trump was asked whether Putin, who has killed and imprisoned his opponents, was a \u201cdictator.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t use those words lightly,\u201d Trump said days after applying the title to democratically elected Zelensky. <\/p>\n

This drew a crooked Gallic grin and a sideways glance from Macron. But it also summed up his enormous task. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CNN \u00a0\u2014\u00a0 This is how much Donald Trump has already transformed America\u2019s global role. Loath to condemn Kremlin aggression on Monday\u2019s third anniversary of the brutal onslaught on Ukraine, the United States chose new voting buddies at the United Nations, including longtime enemies Russia and North Korea. The drama at UN headquarters better reflected the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":493,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}